This petition was submitted during the 2019 to 2024 Parliament
Rejected petition Make defendant attendance at sentencing hearings for serious crimes compulsory.
Rejected on
The sentencing hearing allows the judge to hold the defendant accountable for their actions and gives the victims and their families voices. It is an injustice to allow defendants of heinous crimes such as murder to evade this hearing.
The law regarding this needs to be amended to ensure all defendants of serious crimes are held accountable and their attendance to the sentencing hearing should be made mandatory under UK statutory law.
Why was this petition rejected?
There’s already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue.
You are more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.
You may wish to sign the following petition, which calls for the same action:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/636546
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.